


Displacement

by LittleRaven



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Adjusting to a Different Era, Episode: s03e01 Anne, F/M, Fish out of Temporal Water, Movie: Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Time Period Culture Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:27:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: Buffy finds that she's lost in more ways than one.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Buffy Summers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	Displacement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChronicBookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/gifts).



> Originally posted January 26/2020.

The portal was as disgusting and oozy as it had been before, and now it wouldn’t open. Buffy considered her options. 

She could stand here and stare at it. She didn’t know how the portal worked, and what it took to make it happen. It could be, as she suspected, that the demons she’d just taken care of were the ones responsible for opening it; that was how it usually went with portals. It might open again without them, if there were conditions, leftover magic, something. 

That seemed less likely. She had no resources here to understand. Buffy raised her hands to her face for a long moment. 

She sat down to watch, and think. No Giles, no friends to help her research what had happened. Well. She hadn’t had them all summer. She hadn’t had them in front of Acathla. She’d had herself. Time to make do again. 

If she had no resources, she would have to find some. Before that, a way out of here. She hoped the rest of this hell dimension was a little friendlier. 

Her eyes burned. The California sun wasn’t nothing, but this...and she was so far away from air-conditioning. Forget air-conditioning; fluorescent lights would’ve been kinder. Twice the normal amount of sun made her miss them. 

There was nothing out here. She looked back towards the cave system she’d just emerged from. Nothing else was in there either. No mystical whatsits, no words written out in an alphabet she didn’t know. Just a little in the way of what she hoped was edible food and drinkable water, and she carried that in a loose sack she held at her side. 

She could go back in, keep exploring, and if that didn’t lead to any better solutions, hope to find her way back out. Or she could take what supplies she had and keep going, see if the place would get any more hospitable—as far as hell went—or at least useful. 

It made sense, she decided, to move forward. The caves had been for putting slaves to work, not somewhere people generally chose to live in. She’d be better off looking for the latter. Maybe more people had escaped in the past. It wasn’t time to dwell on what might happen if the caves were all this desert had to offer.

No point in looking back. 

The first thing Buffy found was a camp. The ruins of one. Creatures she didn’t recognize lay charred and broken. They were not, it seemed, the same kind as the ones who had dragged her into this mess. 

It was a dead place, but not a silent one. Habit turned instinct led her to the sounds of struggle. A few creatures, still living, fled past her. She ducked, the buzz of what had come for her a warning, and kicked, hitting solid flesh. The thing—human-like, she registered in the back of her mind—leapt from the ground, now focused on her. 

At least this was something she knew how to face. He was erratic, wild. Under these suns, he couldn’t be a vampire, but he was a blur, faster than any human she’d seen—save Kendra, and the thought of her cooling face under Buffy’s fingers as she closed her eyes stopped the breath in Buffy’s throat. She hit the ground. The buzz was getting louder, closer. She lifted her hands, and it stopped. A thud followed. Buffy coughed on sand, pushed herself up. Her attacker lay on the ground before her, the weapon he’d used against her gone—no, powerless, she realized, recognizing the hilt where it rolled a little away from his hand. Magic laser weapon. She picked it up, watching the owner. She reached over to feel his wrist. Definitely human. His face was dirty, and it seemed damp. Young too, around her age. In what felt like a lifetime ago, Buffy would’ve thought he was cute. She wondered what had led him here, to this wasteland. Was it anything like her reason? Was he trapped too? With a much better weapon? The creatures had been running away from him. She rose to look through the camp, to see if it would bring answers.

It brought one. There was another human, an older woman. Buffy didn’t have to check her pulse to know she was dead. She was familiar with the dead. She got down on her knees anyway. 

A groan came from behind her. She remained where she was, listening to him stalk towards her and the body. When he got close, she blinked and turned her face towards him. She felt the weapon hilt fly out of her hand and back to his. Great. Magic weapon which returned to its owner. 

Still, whatever he saw as she looked at him, he didn’t attack her this time. He turned his face towards the body instead, blank in a way Buffy recognized from every time she’d seen her reflection during the past few months. He was aware of her, she understood, but while she presented no threat he had other things on his mind, now that he was no longer out of it. 

Buffy watched him move the woman’s body, wrapping her up with care before picking her up and leaving. 

She followed; not too close, to give him space, but not far enough that she might seem to be trying to hide it. 

It didn’t feel right to infringe on someone’s suffering, but she needed help, and she hoped his not doing anything to stop her meant he understood, or at least accepted her presence and didn’t care to give her a hard time. 

Buffy sat in the small room of the kitchen. She had spoken, finally, finding a moment when it seemed safe. Expected, really. The few people in the house to which she’d followed the boy grieved like he did, but were more able to attempt to figure her out. Or so they had all thought, Buffy included. When the first of them, the young woman, had asked her a question, Buffy had heard a stream of indecipherable sounds. Buffy responded, but the resulting confusion confirmed it. Of course. She had come through a portal. This dimension, be it the hell kind or, as the house led her to wonder for the first time, just a different one which also had demons, was a foreign place. No reason to think any humans here would speak her language. Hell, even if they were pulled from L.A. at some point, that wouldn’t have guaranteed anything. It was a big city. 

The golden robot they brought in couldn’t help either. At least Buffy thought it had been trying to help. It had talked. She’d shuddered, remembering Ted. 

The woman had pressed a cup into her hand before leaving her to her silence, as she nodded in thanks and left them to their grief. The liquid inside was blue. She drank it, barely noticing the mild sweetness. It was the first thing she’d had in this dimension; she’d been reluctant to touch the supplies from the cave. Buffy was grateful she didn’t have to now. Tiredness, after being held at bay by her immediate needs, crept up in her. 

She was farther from home than she’d ever thought she could be. She’d died, imagined dying again, then stopped imagining anything at all beyond the day-to-day of surviving in L.A., to no end but that of her body not wanting to give up yet. She had just begun, Buffy realized, to decide to go back home. 

A pitcher of the blue drink had been left next to her cup. The kindness spurred tears to form in her eyes. It had been a while since someone had taken care of her. 

She heard the sound of someone entering the next room. Only one person. Good, she wasn’t about to go rummaging for another cup in this strange place. She poured another drink, hoped whoever it was didn’t mind she’d just used it, and carried it over to the doorway. She paused. 

It was the boy. The one who’d carried the dead woman home. Buffy thought of the age she’d been again, and remembered her mother. A son. He was sitting, head in his hands, not looking at her. Buffy approached. Sensing from experience with what she saw in him that it would be difficult to have conversation, even if they could understand each other’s speech, she stopped a short distance away and set the cup on the floor. He might see it, or he might not. She left it to him. 

Buffy turned back, and resumed sitting in the kitchen, hands now resting on her knees. 

He found her there later, looking at her hands, touching her ring. It was hard for her to know how much time had passed. No watch, and the sunlight was different here, and she did not feel up to guessing. 

She watched him stand stiffly, hands twitching. He didn’t look much better than he must feel, but he surprised her by speaking. His gestures made it seem as if he wanted her to come with him. Another surprise. It was the first time he’d paid attention to her since their fight in the camp. 

His weapon. It was magic. It wasn’t the only thing different about this place, granted; the robot was also a little new, at least as something you’d bring out and show a random strange guest. Still, it meant something. If he had access to a weapon like that, he might have access to other magic. It seemed more likely, at least, than the people living in a place with humble vibes being able to help her with this. 

He was trying to help, Buffy hoped. She couldn’t know, but she felt it. Her instincts told her. So she got up and followed him once more. 

Buffy looked out at the stars beyond the ship's window. So, definitely not a hell dimension. She thought back to her reasoning for coming. That laser weapon might not be magic, just like robots weren't. She felt her hope vanish again.

Still. Hope wasn't necessary to keep moving. She had felt right about deciding to go with her companion, and there hadn't been much in the way of other possibilities. 

She appreciated the mutual silence. At least she didn't have to say anything. 

They had barely landed on a much more desirable planet to be stranded on when the boy got a call. Despite what she could tell were the concerned protests of the woman who'd just met up with them, he left her and guided Buffy back to the ship. She was relieved; it was one thing when neither of them could talk to each other, and quite another when she was the odd one out. It wouldn't last long, she knew, but there was no hurry. 

Buffy broke out of her chains. It was clear to her now that, helpful intentions when he'd taken her away aside, he'd known later that he'd be taking her into a dangerous situation. Perhaps he hadn't trusted her enough to leave her alone while he was off getting himself in trouble, and judged this—also dangerous—option to be less bad, as he could keep an eye on her. 

In that case, he’d be keeping an eye on her saving him. She couldn’t afford to lose her only current resource outside herself. She couldn’t afford to lose anyone in a fight again; Buffy repressed that thought and went to work. 

When she ripped his chains out of the post with her bare hands, seeing the shock on his face felt satisfying. Seeing the smile felt like something else; she hadn’t expected it. Buffy let the momentum of the fight ahead carry her through the warmth. 

This place was beautiful. Gorgeous. A city in a dream. Giles would have loved this temple: like something out of an old book, only it and the world were way ahead of what any ancient group of people back home could’ve built. 

Buffy did not love it. She was watched, studied, even now that it had been a few months, and the war was occupying their attention. It had become more subtle, from the adults if not the children, but she could sense it. It was right there in what they had wanted her to call “the Force.”

It was like high school but worse. It didn’t matter that these people were supposed to be enlightened, while the kids and teachers back home were disaffected. She missed her mother and her friends. Though at least when it came to those, she wasn’t entirely without any here. 

Anakin had seemed to take responsibility of her, to an extent. She appreciated his checking in. 

“I came here a little later than usual too,” he’d told her. “It takes some getting used to.”

Basic had been the first thing she’d learned, and Buffy had never been so determined to be fluent in a language. Willow would’ve been proud. 

The last thing, she found, was that she did remember she had eyes. 

She wanted to go back home, even now. But she could still try something new in the meantime. 

Buffy sat on the sleeping mat of the room they’d given her, and touched the ring still on her finger. She looked at it, closed her eyes, and looked at it again, before sliding it off and putting it away. 

In the hall outside, before hearing the voices, she could feel Anakin approaching.


End file.
